History making: Space X to be 1st commercial company to visit ISS, see launch live 5/19/12 early AM

Star trek ashes in the cargo.

First human remains in orbit.

Originally posted by Ahmose
But how are these things not checked and triple checked before hand? I mean wtf?

They are checked. They did a static test fire back in April and everything checked out then. But things can still go wrong regardless.

Thankfully the Rocket is intact and they can just try again on Tuesday. Everyone should keep in mind that this is only the third Falcon 9 ever to be launched. There are bound to be problems that pop up. It takes time to work out issues, improve/modify the design etc.

Anyway. I hope the next launch attempt goes better!